


When You Consider the Radiance

by MagicalDragon, yet_intrepid



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Caretaker Enjolras, Cholera Epidemic of 1832, Doctor Combeferre, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enjolras Holds A Baby, Feuilly is a Good Friend, Gen, Gen or Established Relationship (It's Enjolras and Combeferre! How Do You Tell), Illustrations, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Tired Combeferre, mentions of child death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:27:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23985292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagicalDragon/pseuds/MagicalDragon, https://archiveofourown.org/users/yet_intrepid/pseuds/yet_intrepid
Summary: Combeferre deflates at once, his entire body softly folding down like Enjolras imagines those hot air balloons must when they return from their voyages to the skies. And Enjolras places his hands on Combeferre’s shoulders, and aches vicariously with his exhaustion. Not just what is present, but what is forecasted. In the single wordepidemicis contained a great deal, after all: wards growing packed, supplies dwindling. Combeferre gone longer hours, back with a heavier step. A heavier heart.Enjolras feels heavy too, thinking of it, and he has not even started to think through the deaths.“Let me draw you a bath,” he says.Fic by yet_intrepid, art by MagicalDragon.
Relationships: Combeferre & Enjolras (Les Misérables)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 24
Collections: Les Mis Big Bang: Quarantine Edition





	When You Consider the Radiance

**Author's Note:**

> As mentioned, this work deals with the 1832 cholera epidemic. Specific content that may be triggering, in light of the current COVID19 pandemic, includes uncertainty about how diseases spread (since this is before germ theory solidified), a lack of today's rigorous handwashing practices, and non-graphic portrayal of cholera symptoms like vomiting and diarrhea. One of the art pieces contains corpses.
> 
> The title comes from a poem I (yet_intrepid) have been spending a lot of time with lately, The City Limits by A. R. Ammon, which begins, " _When you consider the radiance, that it does not withhold / itself but pours its abundance without selection into every / nook or cranny not overhung or hidden_ "--and is worth reading to the finish.

Their building is almost unnaturally quiet this time of day, which is why Enjolras hears Combeferre’s footsteps on the stairs even from his bedroom. Pushing a hand through his disheveled hair, he throws on yesterday’s waistcoat and casts his book aside, taking the candle with him as he goes to open the door.

Combeferre, on the landing, blinks at him: a startled, weary expression. The gray predawn makes him look sickly, or perhaps it’s only how tired he is. “Fair warning, I smell awful,” he says, slipping carefully past Enjolras into the living room.

He does, but it’s nothing new. Luckily Enjolras has a strong stomach. “The cholera wards again?”

“Where else?” Combeferre sets down his bag, undoes his overcoat; Enjolras moves to put both away, as well as to light a few more candles. “It’s going to be all hands on cholera wards for—I don’t know. Months. Tomorrow they officially announce an epidemic.”

Enjolras, already making them both tea by default, lifts their large kettle onto the stove. Over his shoulder, he sees Combeferre start to pull a chair out from the table and give up halfway, slumping to lean against the wall instead.

“An epidemic,” Enjolras repeats.

Combeferre nods. “Last time we had one in Paris was the croup in—my God, ’27. But I was still mostly doing coursework then. Plus, at least croup isn’t primarily a disease of the _bowels._ ” He musters a shaky smile. “You’ll have to get used to my new fragrance, I fear.”

“A small request,” Enjolras says, “and it’s granted.” He crosses to Combeferre—pulls the chair out, helps him settle into it. Combeferre deflates at once, his entire body softly folding down like Enjolras imagines those hot air balloons must when they return from their voyages to the skies.

And Enjolras places his hands on Combeferre’s shoulders, and aches vicariously with his exhaustion. Not just what is present, but what is forecasted. In the single word _epidemic_ is contained a great deal, after all: wards growing packed, supplies dwindling. Combeferre gone longer hours, back with a heavier step. A heavier heart.

Enjolras feels heavy too, thinking of it, and he has not even started to think through the deaths.

“Let me draw you a bath,” he says. He’s already set the kettle on; it’s easy to repurpose.

Combeferre’s eyes lift. “Would you mind? Do we have that much water in here?”

“It’s close enough to morning that I can pay a carrier if we don’t.”

“A bath is exactly what I want.” Combeferre sighs, reaching up to undo his cravat. His usually-deft fingers are clumsy with it, so Enjolras kneels to help him. “Thank you. I don’t—as soon as I leave the hospital, my hands no longer remember how to do anything.”

“Then let mine.” When he’s finished with the cravat, Enjolras sets it on the table and pulls out the tub, a full-size porcelain one that his father insisted he should have, from behind one of the bookshelves. He empties it out, the guns and the globe and some knickknacks from Courfeyrac that they never found a place for, as Combeferre takes off his glasses and scrubs a hand over his face.

“Joly has sworn himself to the contagionists now,” he says suddenly, and Enjolras listens from the other room as he stows muskets carefully in the back of his wardrobe. “We talked yesterday and he’s certain of himself, that it’s something in the air or the, the fluids of the body. ”

“I thought he was always a contagionist,” Enjolras says, emerging into the living room again. He does _try_ to keep track of these things, even if he does not always succeed.

Combeferre shrugs. “He always leaned that way, but now he’s committed. And I—damn it, Enjolras, I don’t know what to think. I wish I felt sure.”

Enjolras twines a hand in Combeferre’s curls a moment, then continues busying himself: he sets the tub in front of the stove, empties the piping kettle into it and refills it to heat again, fills the tub with most of the tepid water from the three large buckets along the wall.

“It is hard not to know,” he says, and he _feels_ it, even though the question of disease origin does not sit heavy and constant in his gut as it does in Combeferre’s. Other questions do, other uncertainties, but now is not the time to let them crowd his thoughts. “To work, to go on with the knowledge you have, when crucial pieces are sure to be missing.”

“And when the wrong choice means…so much.” Combeferre is unbuttoning his waistcoat now; Enjolras notes his fingers still trembling. He speaks slowly, with an effort. “So—means so much, Enjolras, means everything, to some people. I lost four patients today. I didn’t say, did I.”

“You didn’t say,” Enjolras says. _Four_ , and it’s only the beginning of the epidemic. “Oh, Combeferre.”

He comes close, intending to help with the buttons; instead, Combeferre latches onto him and clings, face buried in Enjolras’ shoulder. Standing here, Enjolras is turned towards the east windows, where clouds that promise a pleasant day are starting to show. Against the stripe of grim gray sky that’s visible over the rooftops, they etch out a shape for themselves, while Enjolras traces the shape of Combeferre’s shoulder blade with his thumb. He holds him, shushes him, watches a few sparrows perch on a beam.

“You did everything you could,” he murmurs.

Combeferre breathes in raggedly. “Four people, Enjolras.”

“I know.”

They stand that way a while. Enjolras doesn’t know how long. Then the kettle starts to shriek again, and he squeezes Combeferre tighter before grabbing it, hand protected by a towel. “You should get in,” he says, as he pours, as steam billows from the tub. “I’ll keep adding water.”

Combeferre bites his lip, but nods and strips off efficiently, setting his glasses and his folded clothes and on the chair. Amid the next kettle refill, Enjolras hears the gentle splash and soft sigh of him sinking into the bath.

Four people, Enjolras thinks again, even as a distant part of his mind registers satisfaction that Combeferre has automatically relaxed in the warm water. Four patients in a night, and Combeferre will go back and do it again two days from now, and it will only get far worse before it gets better.

“Do you want to talk about your patients?” he asks, settling on the floor next to the tub. “Any of them.”

Combeferre lathers a bar of soap—stares at it like it’s something else entirely, something with answers, perhaps, or _someone_ , with a face. “You’re kind to ask,” he says. “But I don’t. I want—I want to stop seeing them. Seeing all of it. Seeing what’s coming.”

“That is a heavy thing to bear,” Enjolras says. “What is coming.”

Combeferre looks at him then. “I can hardly complain of it to you, I know. You see it constantly, the two paths before us. What will happen if we cannot—cannot do enough.”

“Yes,” Enjolras admits. How those paths shift with an epidemic declared is swirling in his head already: how people who already struggle to survive will now lose income when fathers, mothers, older children die. How even those who survive will be weakened, forced to choose between their recovery and their basic needs.

He screws his eyes shut a moment, trying not to drift too far. “But come, Combeferre, does that not mean you can, all the more, complain of it to me? Why should we lock away the horrors, like molds ignored in the dark chests and cupboards of our own minds? They will only grow there.”

“I hate that you are right.” Combeferre scrubs idly at his knees. “But the worst horror of all this—at least, the worst of it for me—does not have a solution, even when all its crevices are turned beneath a magnifying glass. Not yet. Not in time.”

He stops. Enjolras waits for him.

“We do not know the _cause,_ ” he mutters at last. “Enjolras, I have never been so driven mad by the uncertainty. There is—I cannot deny—great appeal to the idea of contagion. And yet cholera afflicts unjustly _._ It does not come for the rich, or even the middle-class, in the same way that it comes relentlessly for the poor. I cannot see how _traveling matter,_ how some kind of choleric _animalcule_ can explain that pattern, laid out over and over again. And not just now, not just here, not just cholera! But in too many cases to be coincidence.”

“And if you cannot be sure of the cause,” Enjolras says, “then prevention—”

“Is only our best guess work. Exactly.”

Combeferre sinks further into the tub and spends a minute washing himself aggressively; his fingernails are always kept tidy and short, for ease in handling any bug specimens he might come across, but there is still blood and—well, waste, probably, beneath them. Enjolras looks back to the window. There’s an entire flock of small birds now, swooping in and out of view, and Enjolras thinks of how small he feels as he leans his forearms on the edge of the tub, cross-legged on the floor like a child. We are all small, he thinks, in the face of the world’s suffering. But when we band together, we too can soar.

Sometimes he must think it on purpose to feel that it is true.

Sometimes he must think it many times.

“Let me wash your hair,” he says, and Combeferre says, “Please,” and Enjolras reaches for the soap.

“It’s the poor who are suffering, Enjolras,” Combeferre starts again, quietly, leaning his head into Enjolras’ hands. “It’s always the poor, and I cannot discount that simply because I also believe that a home should be lime-washed when cholera is found there, and that bedpans must be changed regularly. Of course that is—it is important. It is the kind and decent and careful thing, to make everything clean, and it would be the height of hypocrisy for me to deny that from your father’s expensive bathtub.” He laughs, bitter. “But—you understand me.”

“But how can that be everything?” Enjolras is, perhaps, rubbing Combeferre’s tense neck as much as he’s washing his hair, but both things seem important.

“How can that be everything,” Combeferre repeats. His voice is at once flat and tired and intense. “How can that be everything, how can that be the primary focus, how can it be _enough_? We bring children to the hospital from lives that lack sufficient light and shelter and food and sleep, who breathe the dust of factories by day, and who cannot properly close their windows against the rain at night. And we tell the parents to _scrub their floors and tables with soap_ to protect the rest of the family from illness, and in twelve hours? They are back with another child ill, and the first dead.”

He breathes in heavily, releasing the air in a sigh or a yawn or something more desperate than either. “And those who survive,” he goes on, “we send them back, and they cannot keep up the recovery regimen we prescribe, and—Enjolras. I cannot bear it.”

“You should not have to,” says Enjolras.

Combeferre lays his head in Enjolras’ hands. “ _They_ should not have to.”

“None of you should.” Enjolras cradles him, scooping up water to start gently rinsing soap from his hair. It is close enough to full dawn now that the candles have gone faint and useless, but not yet so close that sunbeams are pooling on the floor by the window, ready to expand into broad stripes. Enjolras squeezes his eyes shut again, dimly aware of a pounding headache behind them. He should’ve slept—but that does not matter now, not with Combeferre so heartbroken before him, so worn down by the world and its endless bombardments.

“The younger brother’s going to die too.” Combeferre slides forward in the tub so he can finish rinsing his hair, but returns immediately, drenched, to Enjolras, so that he may whisper. “His name is—it’d take a miracle. I don’t think he’s even six. His name is…I’ve forgotten. God.”

Enjolras could weep. “You cannot hold everything in your heart, Combeferre. Not every name, every death, every _responsibility_.”

Combeferre sits up. He pivots to look at Enjolras directly, resolute now even in his pain. It is perhaps the absence of his glasses, or the water droplets that his eyelashes have not shed, that make his black eyes seem wider, more both more tender and more intense than usual.

“If I do not,” he says, “who will?”

“If you do,” Enjolras counters, “how long can you last?”

Enjolras cannot tell who moves first. But they cling to each other again, soaking Enjolras’ shirt through. It is damp and sticky and uncomfortable, but it is Combeferre, here with him, which means it is the best thing in the world.

The questions can wait, Enjolras thinks. They have been named, and that is not a small thing, and it will be fully morning soon enough.

“Did I wake you coming up the stairs?” Combeferre asks, as if he’s been carried along with Enjolras’ thoughts. “It wasn’t even five o’clock when I came home; I’m sorry.”

Enjolras sighs. “You didn’t,” he says. “I hadn’t slept.”

Combeferre opens his mouth like he’ll reproach him, then closes it and tighter.

“I was working,” Enjolras explains. “Plans, letters, articles. And I wanted—I wanted to see that you came home safe.”

“And I did.”

Enjolras does his best to smile. “And you did.”

*

Combeferre has just shut his door to sleep when there are steps outside their door again, and an insistent knock. Enjolras sets down his half-brewed tea.

“Combeferre?” It’s Feuilly’s voice; he’s rapping again before Enjolras can cross three steps to open up.

“My God,” Enjolras says. He pulls Feuilly in and shuts the door behind him. “What is it? The police?”

Feuilly shakes his head, urgent. “Not that. No. Is Combeferre here? I’d hoped—”

“He just got back from a night shift.” Enjolras’ brow creases. “Are you hurt? Is someone—?”

“A good friend of mine,” Feuilly says. “You remember Lucie Gauthier, her husband Henri? You met them during the bread riots last summer—but it doesn’t matter. Her little girl’s sick. Worried it’s the cholera. I told her I’d ask Combeferre—but I can see if Joly—”

“I’m awake.” Combeferre opens his bedroom door, waistcoat half-buttoned and cravat thrown over his shoulder. His hair is still wet. “Cholera moves fast; you don’t have time to look for Joly.”

Guilt flashes plainly across Feuilly’s face at Combeferre’s exhausted posture, the deep circles under his eyes. Enjolras can see it all—but he can see the weariness under Feuilly’s adrenaline, too, and the fear for his friends.

“I’ll call a cab,” Enjolras says. “As you said, Combeferre, no time to spare. Feuilly, if you’d raid our cupboards for a portable breakfast, while Combeferre gets his bag?”

*

Enjolras remembers Lucie Gauthier, but once Combeferre has gotten as much as Feuilly knows of the child’s symptoms, Feuilly seems to find it comforting to talk about her as the cab rolls them through the awakening streets.

“Must’ve been three years we worked in the same _atelier_ , me and Lucie,” he says, as much to the window as to either of them. “That strike we pull

ed in ’28 would’ve collapsed without her. But she left when she had the baby, of course.”

Enjolras makes eye contact with Combeferre so he can direct a significant glance at the apple in his hand. After all, if Combeferre isn’t going to sleep, the least Enjolras can do is make sure he eats something. Combeferre rolls his eyes, but takes a bite.

“I think you introduced us then,” Combeferre says to Feuilly. “In ’28, I mean.”

“Did I?” Feuilly presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. “That would explain why she wasn’t surprised I have a friend who’s a doctor, I suppose.”

Combeferre nods. “We’ve met a few times. How is she?”

“Well, she takes piecework painting from home, mostly from a porcelain shop. And she’s helping a neighbor of hers, who works for a milliner I think, get her coworkers organized.” Feuilly turns one of the croissants he found in the cupboards over and over in his hands, but he also doesn’t seem to register that it’s food. “But she’s lonely, misses the company at the atelier. And Henri’s got long hours at the docks; seems she hardly sees him. I haven’t, either, in weeks.” 

Enjolras tries pointedly eating his own croissant. It does not inspire either Feuilly or Combeferre.

“Are they getting by all right?” he asks, when the silence lingers. “I know you do better for yourself at the _atelier_ than most do at the docks.”

“It was a change for them, Lucie leaving that position,” Feuilly agrees. “But I’m not worried for them on that front. Lilou—the baby—is two now, so they’ve had some time to adjust. –Oh,” he adds, glancing out the window. “We’re almost there. The next turn.”

Feuilly does eat his croissant then, in four focused bites. As they all silently breakfast, Enjolras sighs his relief—sometimes Combeferre doesn’t get a chance to eat during night shifts, and it’s more common than Enjolras would like that he forgets dinner beforehand.

Combeferre gives the contents of his medical bag a last check as the cab pulls to a stop. Enjolras settles with the driver, takes the apple core that Combeferre absently hands him, and follows as Feuilly leads the way into the building before them.

It isn’t a tenement, although it’s certainly more battered than Feuilly’s building is. There’s a definite smell in the staircase—not dust, however, since everything has been diligently swept clean. Mold, Enjolras thinks, and perhaps nearby sewage. It’s quite a dark climb, too, almost no windows.

Combeferre, two steps ahead, looks back at Enjolras. “The air,” he mutters.

The Gauthiers live on the fourth floor. Lucie opens the door before they get close enough to knock, peering into the dim hallway.

“Feuilly?” she asks.

“It’s me,” Feuilly says, and she lets them in.

“Good morning, Doctor Combeferre. Thank you so much for coming. And—Monsieur Enjolras, isn’t it?” Lucie gestures to the two chairs. “Please sit down, if you like. Feuilly, Henri’s already left for work, I’m sorry. I know you wanted to see him.”

Feuilly shrugs. “I know how it is.” He sits down, just as at ease as he would be in Combeferre and Enjolras’ flat.

“It’s good to see you again, Madame Gauthier,” Enjolras says, soberly. “I hope next time we meet it’s under better circumstances.”

Lucie’s face has betrayed only a vague tension until now, but as she looks over at Enjolras, her lip trembles. “Thank you,” she says, and then hesitates, some other sentence teetering on her tongue.

Combeferre steps in. “How is your daughter, madame?” he asks. “Might I examine her?”

“Of course.” Lucie wipes her hands on her apron, recovering her composure. “She’s finally fallen asleep—most of the night she was up, fussing. Over here in the crib. Those are the neighbor’s children in the bed; their parents leave them with me when they’re at work. But they’re sound sleepers, so I expect it’ll be another hour until they’re up and under foot.” 

Enjolras takes a seat with Feuilly as Combeferre settles on the floor next to the crib, lifting the blanket from two-year-old Lilou. Enjolras can still hear exhaustion in his voice, but it’s unlikely anyone else could—his gentle, warm professionalism is at the forefront, and he’s both friendly and concerned.

“Tell me, Madame Gauthier, how long has your daughter had these loose bowel motions?”

“Well, the trouble is that it’s hard to say exactly,” Lucie says, sitting on the floor as well. “She’s always been—messy and irregular, you know, some babies are more than others. So she started having a spell of it, pretty bad cramps and mess, perhaps three days ago. And I didn’t think anything of it then. But last night it was suddenly so different.”

“What changed?” Combeferre asks. “Oh, and if you have a dirty napkin’s of Lilou’s from last night—and perhaps one from yesterday? I will need to examine the contents.”

As Lucie gets up to find one, Feuilly wrinkles his nose.

“I have never had a good stomach for this kind of thing,” he admits to Enjolras in a murmur.

“I gained one only by constant secondhand exposure,” Enjolras says, “and by a perhaps ridiculous desire to prove my staunchness to Combeferre, when occasion arose.”

Feuilly snorts. “Well, it serves you well, whatever the cause.”

“Do you feel ill?” Enjolras asks. Feuilly does seem pale. “We could step outside.”

“I’m queasy,” Feuilly admits. “But I have been since I woke up morning. –No,” he says, lifting a reassuring hand when Enjolras opens his mouth. “It’s only worry. Lucie hammered on my door at five in the morning telling me her baby might have _cholera_ , Enjolras. She’s my best friend. It gets to a man.”

“It does.”

Feuilly follows Enjolras’ gaze to Combeferre, who is bundling the dirty napkin back up as he listens intently to Lucie. “To you, too?”

“Of course. In different ways, but of course.” Enjolras notices his leg jittering and makes an effort to be still. “Although I have the advantage of having seen Combeferre encounter half the diseases known to man and remain, for the most part, in good health.”

“Mm,” Feuilly agrees. “But there is something different, this time. You cannot tell me you don’t feel it.”

“I feel it.”

Enjolras covers his eyes with his hand, rubbing his temples—and looks up again to the sudden sound of a child crying.

“Oh, oh no, I’m sorry,” Combeferre says, as Lucie lifts her daughter out of the crib and bounces her soothingly. “I didn’t mean—”

“Not your fault,” Lucie says, “she was like this all night. Shh, Lilou, _ma petite_ —”

“Tummy hurts,” Lilou wails. “Hurts, Maman!”

Then the other children start to wake. They’re older than Lilou, but nearly as noisy, asking what’s going on and who’s there, Madame Gauthier, why is Monsieur Feuilly here, can we eat breakfast, is Lilou okay, a thousand questions.

Lilou spits up on Lucie’s dress.

And Enjolras sees it all happen: Combeferre’s lips tighten. Lucie’s brow draws in and her face goes exhaustion-pale as she tries to calm Lilou. Feuilly, who is trying to steer the neighbors’ kids to sit on the bed, looks at Lucie with a wrenching concern.

Enjolras steps towards Lucie, hands outstretched. “May I take her, madame?” he asks underneath the screaming. “I can assist Combeferre.”

“Would you mind?” Lucie hesitates.

“Not at all.”

Lilou is heavier than Enjolras expects, but it’s logical enough how to settle her onto his hip, and for once the urge to bounce his leg is good for something. Lilou looks at him, startled enough by being handed to a stranger to stop screaming for a moment, and—as Lucie wipes her dress clean and goes to help Feuilly with the other children—Enjolras looks back into her wide, serious eyes.

“It hurts, I know,” he says gravely.

“Tummy,” Lilou agrees, with a whimper and a little nod. Enjolras is struck, amid the noise and clamor of everything, with her frailty, her near helplessness—and her ability to make herself heard.

There is only one window in the flat, narrow and half-blocked from the sun by the chimneys opposite. Still, whatever of the sunrise manages to drift in catches in Lilou’s dark hair as if she draws it there, small as she is.

“The doctor wants to help your tummy,” Enjolras tells her. He takes out his handkerchief, intending to wipe her face clean, but she reaches for it and he figures a distraction is just as good. He uses the handkerchief to point at Combeferre as he takes Lilou over to him. “The doctor is my friend. He helps me a great deal.”

Lilou whimpers again. “Hurts,” she insists.

“Enjolras, I need to examine her abdomen,” Combeferre says, low. “Looking at her stools isn’t conclusive—we’ve caught it early, whatever it is. But I want to eliminate the possibility that it’s a few worms, or the flux coming on, or simply a poor adjustment to weaning.”

Enjolras hands Lilou the handkerchief. It works, thank God. “On a blanket on the floor?”

“She has a rattle in the crib,” Lucie calls over.

Enjolras flashes her a smile in thanks and lays Lilou down on the blanket Combeferre spreads. As he starts to hum, cross-legged on the floor again and turning the rattle thoughtfully to the rhythm of the song, Feuilly picks up his hat.

“Let’s take the rest of these rascals for a walk to the bakery,” he says to Lucie, who agrees with an anxious _thank you_ , and there’s a flurry of shoe-finding and jacket-buttoning.

“I’ll be right back, _ma petite_ ,” Lucie calls over again, this time to Lilou, who has Enjolras’ handkerchief in her mouth.

The door closes, and the room is quiet, and Combeferre’s calm smile falters. Enjolras can see him thinking what he said earlier that morning, in the dark: _When the wrong choice means so much, means everything—I wish I felt sure._

“Tell us what to do,” Enjolras says. “Lilou and me.”

Combeferre swallows, nods. “Lilou,” he says, “you know peek-a-boo, right? Or hide-and-seek? We’re going to play a game where you hide under your dress.” He turns her dress up to cover her face, peeks at her once with a smile to put her at ease. “And my fingers are going to look all over your tummy to see if they can find you.”

Lilou hitches in a breath and pulls the handkerchief out of her mouth, ready to cry again. “Tummy _hurts_ ,” she says to Enjolras, betrayed.

Combeferre’s eyes flutter closed, and Enjolras feels a swelling inside him, a readiness to fight to the death for both of them to be safe and well in bed—but _canne de combat_ and marksmanship and a talent for debate will not take him very far towards that aim. So instead he strokes Lilou’s hair the same way that he would Combeferre’s, and gentles his voice.

“His fingers have to find the hurt,” he says, “before he can help.” He nods at Combeferre to get started, making sure to shake the rattle with his other hand, and drops his voice to a whisper. “But it’s very fun to surprise him. You could make him forget you’re under there, and you could make a—a lion noise.”

“Don’t like a lion,” Lilou sniffs.

“What do you like?” asks Enjolras. He suddenly cannot think of any animals except the bugs in Combeferre’s collection, which don’t make many noises, or the ones in Combeferre’s books on Egypt. What does a crocodile sound like, or a jackal or an ibis? “A—cow?”

Combeferre’s shoulders jolt, a sure sign of a stifled laugh, before he returns to biting his lip to focus on the examination.

“A horsie?” Lilou’s voice is still shaking, but she holds up the handkerchief. “And ribbons.”

“A horse with ribbons.” Enjolras supposes the thin lace edge of his handkerchief must have made her think of it. “That would certainly be a surprise for Doctor Combeferre, if he finished finding the hurt in your tummy and suddenly you were a horse with ribbons.” He meets Combeferre’s eye and mouths, “Almost done?”

Combeferre holds up one finger. Enjolras nods.

“You are very brave and good at hiding, Lilou,” he says. Her arms are quivering, he notices—perhaps if he holds onto her hand? “Do you know a song about horses?”

“No!” Lilou says. For the first time, she starts to energetically squirm under Combeferre’s hands. “Don’t want to!”—and that’s the end of intelligible words; it’s only wailing left.

“Lilou,” Enjolras says, “ _petite,_ shh—” and at a nod from Combeferre he pulls her dress back down and picks her up, starting to bounce again.

“Careful,” says Combeferre, and he’s right; she spits up on his shoulder and, within a few seconds, noticeably messes her napkin.

Combeferre lifts her from his arms.

“I’m sorry,” Enjolras says. “I didn’t think about the motion, with her bowels.”

“I have to see if there’s any change in the stools,” Combeferre says. He is faltering again, a blank terror in his eyes, as he lays her down again, still crying loudly. Enjolras sights what looks like a clean baby napkin and hands it to him, then recovers his handkerchief to wipe his jacket.

The door opens.

“You didn’t have to change her,” Lucie says, “I can—” and Enjolras shakes his head, steering her towards the table.

“He said it helps with the examination, madame.” Enjolras glances at Feuilly, then at the children, who seem more listless than they did half an hour ago. “That was a quick trip—there was no line?”

“We came back,” Feuilly says to the floor. “The two girls are sick, Enjolras. They had to retch halfway there.”

“You need to get them all to the hospital now.” Combeferre finishes changing Lilou and hands her to Enjolras, then rapidly pulls two containers out of his medical bag and shakes three pills from the first of them. Despite the flurry of his hands, his voice stays level. “Madame, I’m sorry to tell you, but Lilou has early stage cholera.”

Lucie shakes her head, defeated. “So I was right.”

“You were,” Combeferre says. “Her earlier stools were unclear, since she has a history of loose bowels, but now it cannot be mistaken. Cholera moves fast, Madame Gauthier, as I am sure you know, and there is a very high probability that the other children have it as well. It is a very good thing that you and Feuilly called for me when you did.”

He hands the first container to Enjolras. “Take a pencil from my bag and copy down the ingredients from this label, if you would. –Madame,” he goes on, as he opens each capsule and empties part of it into the empty container, “I’m just reducing this dosage based on the children’s ages. I try to carry a bottle that’s already adjusted, but I forgot to request another during my shift last night.”

Enjolras has finally found a pencil, which is much harder to do, he realizes, while holding a very sick two-year-old. He scribbles down the ingredients ( _calomel 2 1/2 grains, opium 1/4 grain, cayenne pepper 2 grains_ ) in the margins of a newspaper article he’s got in his jacket pocket. Even taking something out of his pocket is much harder with Lilou, who has decided to cling to him now, heavy and hot and sobbing quietly. He’s grateful when Lucie takes charge of convincing her to take the medicine.

“I’ll call a cab,” he suggests, slipping into a more wonted role, and when Combeferre nods approval he hands the medication list to Feuilly and takes to the stairs.

*

When Lucie and all the children are seen off in the cab, which Enjolras quietly paid in advance while no one was around to argue about it, and the last details are straightened out—advising the landlady about cleaning with lime, sending messages to Henri Gauthier and to the neighbors, reassuring Feuilly that he has done the best he can as he reluctantly hurries to work—Enjolras and Combeferre stand side-by-side in the street, in the full sun of morning.

“You would have made a good doctor,” Combeferre says.

“Your exhaustion _is_ going to your head, if you think so,” Enjolras says, a fond smile on his lips. “You flatter me.”

They turn towards home, automatically opting to walk now that there is no crisis. For a blink of a moment, Enjolras is concerned, but he trusts Combeferre to speak up for himself if the walk is too long.

“I meant your bedside manner, more than anything.” Combeferre’s boot catches in some unidentified muck; Enjolras slows as he pulls it free. “You are very steadying. Hopeful, without minimizing the pain at hand or the attending risk. That is a knack many practitioners of medicine never master, and more than I would like to admit simply never attempt.”

“It is the same knack as building a political connection,” Enjolras says, but he blushes faintly at the praise nevertheless. “And you were right, Combeferre—I cannot see that it is possible for this epidemic to be apolitical. With Lilou I felt, I think…”

He trails off, starts over. “You said something earlier. _If I do not hold all this, who will?_ And God knows I have felt that question aching inside me many times and for many reasons. But I had not so keenly felt the responsibility and weight of health as a social question until I carried Lilou on my hip.” They turn into a narrower, quieter street, and Enjolras sighs out a heavy breath. “Combeferre, will she die?”

“She might,” Combeferre says, quietly. “What can I say, Enjolras? It’s cholera. But as I said, we caught it very early. She has—she has the best chance we could give her.”

Enjolras nods. They walk onwards, silent and thoughtful.

“You said something to me this morning as well.” Combeferre finally says. His face is soft and serious. “If we do hold it all, how long can we last?”

A flock of sparrows swoops into the corridor of blue sky which the street allows to their view and, swerving into clusters, tuck themselves into window nooks and assorted ill-repaired roofs. Enjolras stops still, watching them stark in silhouette against the day, and Combeferre stops beside him.

“I don’t know,” Enjolras says. “But I know that it is _we_ , at least.” He puts an arm around Combeferre’s shoulders; with the other, he gestures wide: the houses around them, the passers in the street, the sparrows, the sun. “There are experiences that do not overlap, and that is lonely, but at the root? There is no suffering held by you alone or I. And so we can aid one another. We can shift who must hold how much and what and when. And what all of us together cannot hold, Combeferre—what we cannot bear, we can change.”

Combeferre puts his arm around Enjolras in turn, and they head for home. Enjolras is more than ready, he thinks, to sleep in the warmth of the sunlight.

**Author's Note:**

> If you'd like to yell about your feelings on the intricate rituals of hairwashing or about Enjolras holding babies, you can find writer yet_intrepid on tumblr as [apaladinagain](https://apaladinagain.tumblr.com/). If you'd like to make sure artist MagicalDragon knows he's fantastic, you can find him at [comradegrantaire](https://comradegrantaire.tumblr.com/).


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